Project Roles in Project Execution Management Applications

A project role is a classification of the relationship that a person has to a project, such as project manager, functional consultant, or technical lead. Project role for a user can vary from one project to another.

For example, Mary can be a Business Analyst for one project and a Project Coordinator for a another project.

A project role has two components:

Enterprise role: Each project role is associated with one enterprise role. The enterprise role associated with a project determines the functional and data access on the project. This access is project-specific and won't apply to other projects.

Note: Multiple project roles can be associated with the same enterprise role.
Qualifications and keywords: Each role can be associated with multiple qualifications and keywords. These are used to associate competencies to the project role. These are used by project managers and resource managers for managing resources.

Here's how project roles are used:

To identify the type of work that a person performs on project assignments.
To set up default resource qualifications.
As criteria when searching for resources to fulfill project resource requests.
As a resource's primary project role.
To allow access to project management information for project managers.
To identify the default staffing owner of project resource requests for a project.

Managing Project Roles

You can either use the predefined roles or create custom roles. The application provides predefined project roles such as Project Manager and Team Member. Project application administrators can create custom project roles and manage all project roles using the Manage Project Roles task.

For predefined roles, project application administrators can:

Edit enterprise role.
Manage qualifications and keywords.

For custom roles, project application administrators can:

Edit project role name, enterprise role, and description.
Manage qualifications and keywords.
Specify from date and to date.

Considerations for Managing Project Roles

Here are some considerations for managing project roles.

You can't delete predefined project roles.
You can't delete custom project roles that are:
- Designated as resources' primary role
- Specified on a project resource request
- Assigned to a resource on a project
- The default qualifications, proficiency, and keywords associated with a project role automatically appear as requirements on a project resource request when project managers select the project role for the request.

Primary Project Roles

You can designate a primary project role for a resource that represents the work that the resource typically performs on project assignments.

Here's how a resource's primary project role is used:

As a resource search option filter when viewing resources on the Search and Evaluate Resources page in the Resource Management work area
When comparing the attributes of multiple resources against the requirements specified in the project resource request on the Compare Resources page